Treading the Thin Blue Line: Military Special-Operations Trained Police SWAT Teams and the Constitution

The increasing use of SWAT teams and paramilitary force by local law enforcement has been the focus of a growing concern regarding the heavy-handed exercise of police power. Critics question the constitutionality of joint-training between the military and civilian police, as well as the Fourth Amendment considerations raised by SWAT tactics. This Note examines the history, mission, and continuing need for police SWAT teams, addressing the constitutional issues raised concerning training and tactics. It explains how SWAT joint-training with the military is authorized by federal law and concludes that SWAT tactics are constitutionally acceptable in a majority of situations. Though these tactics are legal and constitutionally authorized, this Note acknowledges the valid fears critics have regarding the abuse of such police authority, and the limitations of constitutional tort jurisprudence in adequately redressing resulting injuries

The study of multifragmentation around transition energy in intermediate energy heavy-ion collisions

Fragmentation of light charged particles is studied for various systems at different incident energies between 50 and 1000 MeV/nucleon. We analyze fragment production at incident energies above, below and at transition energies using the isospin dependent quantum molecular dynamics(IQMD) model. The trends observed for the fragment production and rapidity distributions depend upon the incident energy, size of the fragments, composite mass of the reacting system as well as on the impact parameter of the reaction. The free nucleons and light charged particles show continous homogeneous changes irrespective of the transition energies indicating that there is no relation between the transition energy and production of the free as well as light charged particles

Ocular Accommodation, Intraocular Pressure, Development of Myopia, and Glaucoma: Role of Ciliary Muscle, Choroid, and Metabolism

Ocular accommodation is not just a mechanism for altering curvature of the crystalline lens of the eye, it also enables aqueous humor outflow through the trabecular meshwork, influencing intraocular pressure (IOP). Long term stress on the ciliary muscle from sustained near focusing may initiate myopic eye growth in children and primary open angle glaucoma in presbyopic adults. Multi-factorial studies of ocular accommodation that include measures of IOP, ciliary muscle morphology, anterior chamber depth, and assessment of nutritional intake and metabolic markers may elucidate etiology and novel strategies for management of both myopia and chronic glaucoma. Anatomy of the ciliary fibers from anterior insertion in the fluid drainage pathway to their posterior consanguinity with the vascular choroid, alters ocular parameters such as micro-fluctuations of accommodation and pulsatile ocular blood flow that are driven by cardiac contractions conveyed by carotid arteries. Stretching of the choroid has consequences for thinning of the peripheral retina, sclera and lamina cribrosa—with potential to induce retinal tears and optic nerve cupping. It is hoped that the present synthesis of relevant literature and evidence based speculations, may stimulate additional research conducted clinically oriented scientists, supported by their host institutions. Early metabolic interventions may lead to prevention or reduced severity of myopia and glaucoma. It is hoped that improved quality of life for patients and informed consumers, and reduced disability from visual impairment and blindness may result

Ocular Accommodation, Intraocular Pressure, Development of Myopia, and Glaucoma: Role of Ciliary Muscle, Choroid, and Metabolism

Ocular accommodation is not just a mechanism for altering curvature of the crystalline lens of the eye, it also enables aqueous humor outflow through the trabecular meshwork, influencing intraocular pressure (IOP). Long term stress on the ciliary muscle from sustained near focusing may initiate myopic eye growth in children and primary open angle glaucoma in presbyopic adults. Multi-factorial studies of ocular accommodation that include measures of IOP, ciliary muscle morphology, anterior chamber depth, and assessment of nutritional intake and metabolic markers may elucidate etiology and novel strategies for management of both myopia and chronic glaucoma. Anatomy of the ciliary fibers from anterior insertion in the fluid drainage pathway to their posterior consanguinity with the vascular choroid, alters ocular parameters such as micro-fluctuations of accommodation and pulsatile ocular blood flow that are driven by cardiac contractions conveyed by carotid arteries. Stretching of the choroid has consequences for thinning of the peripheral retina, sclera and lamina cribrosa—with potential to induce retinal tears and optic nerve cupping. It is hoped that the present synthesis of relevant literature and evidence based speculations, may stimulate additional research conducted clinically oriented scientists, supported by their host institutions. Early metabolic interventions may lead to prevention or reduced severity of myopia and glaucoma. It is hoped that improved quality of life for patients and informed consumers, and reduced disability from visual impairment and blindness may result

Combatting Gender Oppression: Applying Intersectionality in Microfinance Self-help Groups

Microfinance studies indicate the varied impacts of access to credit on women and suggest the need for programmes to address the diversity of women. An intersectional approach offers contextualised understanding of inequality for different women. This study investigated the provision of credit to women via the self-help group (SHG) model, implemented by a women’s non-government organisation in Gujarat, India. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, document analysis and non-participant observation. The programme’s utilisation of an intersectional approach was associated with the generation of indepth knowledge on forms of oppression affecting different SHG women. Such knowledge was important for the incorporation of programme objectives and strategies which were responsive to the concerns and needs of different women in the programme. As such, programme agendas and priorities must be informed by the self-articulated concerns of women themselves, reaffirming the need for donors to support bottom-up approaches

Not All Comments are Equal: Insights into Comment Moderation from a Topic-Aware Model

Moderation of reader comments is a significant problem for online news platforms. Here, we experiment with models for automatic moderation, using a dataset of comments from a popular Croatian newspaper. Our analysis shows that while comments that violate the moderation rules mostly share common linguistic and thematic features, their content varies across the different sections of the newspaper. We therefore make our models topic-aware, incorporating semantic features from a topic model into the classification decision. Our results show that topic information improves the performance of the model, increases its confidence in correct outputs, and helps us understand the model's outputs